Holiday Inn Previews- Page 4

[Steve C.]

Posted: 9/10/16 at 12:30pm

We bought our tickets for Christmas week and, judging from some of the comments, I sure hope it's not as bad as some of the posts. I started to watch the Corbin Bleu podcast/video diary that shows snippets from rehearsal and interviews. I think you have to be willing, as least partly, to appreciate how much Irving Berlin songs still resonate.  His catalog has become a part of The Great American Songbook. Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald have both recorded his extensive library, not to mention everyone from Grace Jones to Doris Day to even Barbra Streisand.

I watched "Holiday Inn" for the first time last year. It's not Easter Parade but it has its' charm. I am still looking forward to seeing it, especially to see how they they've made the "needed" changes. I'm sure the blackface numbers are gone. They also had a "Mammy" type housekeeper. I don't remember a jump rope dance but CB sure has big shoes to fill. Fred Astaire does do the Firecracker song in the movie with his unbelievable choreography. I do very much like Bryce Pinkham and I'm hoping for the best. 

[dramamama611]

Posted: 9/15/16 at 9:29am

Can anyone give an update on running time?

[SweetLips]

Posted: 9/15/16 at 4:09pm

Mr Roxy said: "The phrase " Blew me away" is,I believe, way past its shelf life.Sounds like something a starstruck teen might say. Just my opinion and feel free to use it if you feel it does it for you.

Have tried to resist for a while now--but sometimes you just can't with some contributors so without saying anything[me] I now feel free to read and resist again---until again when I just can't.

"

 

Updated On: 9/15/16 at 04:09 PM

[thomaspaine]

Posted: 9/15/16 at 4:16pm

The Mammy character is now a white Rosie the Riveter type (played sort of as a lesbian?). Some of the lines haven't been changed toward her character, though, which occasionally is a tiny bit odd. For example, Corbin Bleu says he remembers dancing with a hazy figure from the night before, and she says "It could have been me" and he says "Not THAT figure!" which was I suppose a joke about the original character's weight. This actress is quite thin.

Updated On: 9/15/16 at 04:16 PM

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 9/16/16 at 9:14pm

Which of these musicals doesn't belong?

Cabaret
On The 20th Century
The Robber Bridegroom
She Loves Me
Holiday Inn

Maybe Roundabout just blew its budget last year and went with something not too expensive to stage and likely to please a lot of folks with its score and musical numbers.

What kind of an orchestra did the show have?

Updated On: 9/16/16 at 09:14 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/16/16 at 11:12pm

Louise Beavers, a talented African American actress, played Mamie. Her career consisted, sadly, mainly of playing domestics, but her talent far surpassed the racist constrictions imposed on her and all other African-American actors. She specialized in all-knowing or wisecracking domestics, but could have played so much more.



There were three highlights of her career: one was Imitation of Life, in which she starred with Claudette Colbert the second was playing Jackie Robinson's mother in the feature film about his breaking of racial barriers in baseball. 



The other carried a huge burden of irony: Louise Beavers played the lead in the very first television program to star a black actor. The show, of course, was Beulah, and Beulah was a maid who had been portrayed previously on TV and radio by Hattie McDaniel and Ethel Waters. Louise Beavers was the third (and most successful Beulah), but unfortunately for her, the one who caught the most criticism from the NAACP for playing a stereotypical "Mammy" role, the same basic role she played in Holiday Inn and the only kind of role plus-size African-American actresses could get hired to play.



The blackface "Abraham" number is usually cut from contemporary showings of the film. It is just too beyond the pale of racism to be taken as anything else. But the levels of irony are startling when the number is viewed today: It's praising Lincoln's actions and the end of slavery by using the conventions of the minstrel show, which depicted stereotypical black people played by white performers in blackface. They are not imitating ACTUAL black people--they are imitating the characters in minstrel shows, stock characters as predictable as commedia dell'arte characters. 

And to make it even more bewildering to our sensibilities, Louise Beavers, as Mamie the maid, gets a verse (easily cut-able for southern audiences) in which she teaches her children about the bravery of President Abraham!

Here it is, preserved on an academic media studies website:

 

http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/sammondn/clips/holiday-inn-abraham-scene/view

 

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 9/17/16 at 10:16pm

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers starred in eight films together between 1935 and 1940. Opinions differ, of course, but to me if given the question if I only watch one Astaire/Rogers film in my life, it should be... the answer would be Swing Time. This one featured a sublime original score from Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields. The Oscar award winning "Just the Way You Look Tonight" is the most popular song by number of iTunes downloads of all the songs recorded by Rod Stewart in his "Great American Songbook" albums. There is also the comic "Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off" and the sarcastic love song "A Fine Romance."

The instrumental and incidental music written by Kern is also superb. 

Yet another feature of Swing Time is Fred Astaire donning blackface and performing a tribute to the famous African American tap dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who -- I'm not making this up -- became famous as a dance partner with Shirley Temple in early 30s films.

This number has never to my knowledge been deleted from the film, nor has their been much complaint against it. This is probably due to the great feeling that Astaire put into the number as not just a tribute to Robinson but as a tribute to all the great African American tap dancers, including the one who had taught Astaire, John Bubbles. The number itself is considered to be too distinctive to take out.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, although Robinson was well paid, his generosity and fondness for gambling left him with little money. When he died, he received tributes from royalty, the White House, and members of the U.S. president’s cabinet.

(It's about a minute before we get from the chorus girls to Astaire. Payoff probably worth it.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuAIJhB45wM

If you should be in a Fred and Ginger mood, here is the elegant climactic dance number (with Ginger).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82PazvWQqU0

 

 

 

Updated On: 9/18/16 at 10:16 PM

[Mamie]

Posted: 9/17/16 at 11:29pm

I loved nearly all the Rogers/Astaire musicals, but I agree - Swing Time stood well above the rest, primarily because of that fabulous score.   I've got to dig out that DVD and watch it again .   For me it never gets old!

Ginger wrote about filming that final dance. Fred wanted it all done in one take - without any editing cuts. Every time a small mistake was made, they had to start over again from the beginning. Once they finally got a good take that Fred was happy with, she limped away and took off her shoes and saw that they were full of blood. The girl had guts - and gets top billing from me for it!
Updated On: 9/17/16 at 11:29 PM

[dramamama611]

Posted: 9/18/16 at 12:11am

Caught this tonight....it was sweet, I'm a sucker for tap.   Is it great theater? No, but enjoyable enough and many older theater goers will love it.

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 9/18/16 at 7:34am

Ginger wrote about filming that final dance. Fred wanted it all done in one take - without any editing cuts. Every time a small mistake was made, they had to start over again from the beginning. Once they finally got a good take that Fred was happy with, she limped away and took off her shoes and saw that they were full of blood. The girl had guts - and gets top billing from me for it!
"

Ginger was great. That bloody shoes story is dead true, then. Astaire was a perfectionist and she had to rehearse and rehearse. She would be working on a drama and on breaks it was rehearse some more.You obviously know that she won the leading actress drama Oscar. I think that I like Follow the Fleet more than most (and would like it better if not so much solo Fred) because Ginger has a singing solo ("Let Yourself Go," the title tune of Kristin Chenoweth's first album), a tap solo, and is very funny in that comic dance routine done to "I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket."

Crazy. The film is 80 years old. But Astaire, Rogers and Kern were artists willing to put in the time to make something memorable enough to still be remembered after 80 years.

 

 

Updated On: 9/18/16 at 07:34 AM

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 9/21/16 at 7:23am

I recently caught this, and I was just about bored to tears a vast majority of the evening. This show is just SO bland. Why Roundabout put this in their lineup is beyond me, and it pales majorly in comparison to some of their recent musical offerings like She Loves Me and On the Twentieth Century.

 
The cast was alright. No one really has any standout moments, so there's not much to say. Shout out to the ensemble though for KILLING that choreography, though. The highlights of the evening could definitely be credited to the choreography. 

 
The set and costumes were fine, but, like the rest of the show, absolutely nothing to write home about. 
 

I have never seen the film, so I went in blind. The story was just not interesting. I don't mind sweet and fluffy shows, but this wasn't either of those things... it was just bland and the story just fell very flat.

 
After the resplendent revival of She Loves Me, this was pretty disappointing. While I didn't HATE it, I can't say that I liked it either. As others have mentioned, this show just doesn't really belong on Broadway. It belongs in community theatres.

Updated On: 9/27/16 at 07:23 AM

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 9/21/16 at 7:28am

OlBlueEyes said: "Which of these musicals doesn't belong?

Cabaret
On The 20th Century
The Robber Bridegroom
She Loves Me
Holiday Inn

Maybe Roundabout just blew its budget last year and went with something not too expensive to stage and likely to please a lot of folks with its score and musical numbers.

What kind of an orchestra did the show have?

 

"

Still waiting for that parade revival.

[EvanstonDad]

Posted: 9/21/16 at 9:06am

And to add another bit of trivia to OlBlueEyes' post about "Swing Time": For three years in the 1930s, a category existed at the Academy Awards for Best Dance Direction. It was a weird category, citing film choreographers for specific numbers within films rather than for their work in an entire film. In some instances, they were nominated for different numbers from different films, but it only counted as a single nomination, if that makes sense. Anyway, legendary choreographer Hermes Pan was nominated for the "Bojangles of Harlem" number from "Swing Time." He lost, but would win the award the next year for a number from the film "A Damsel in Distress." The category would be disbanded the year after that, I believe because of complaints from the directors guild.

There's your useless piece of film trivia on this stormy (in Chicago) Wednesday morning.

[goldenboy]

Posted: 9/21/16 at 10:29am

Like a B movie musical from the 40's and 50's, (Summer Stock, White Christmas) this is a perfectly respectable old fashioned musical. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Choreographer Denis Jones has done a marvelous job with the production numbers and he is the real star of this show. His chorus are also the wonderful scene stealing dancer singers of the show. I think the its worth it just to see Mr Jones and his wonderful chorus. His work on Honeymoon in Vegas was also stellar and he is a choreographer to watch.

I thought Bryce Pinkham was marvelous in the everyman role. His voice was great and I found him likable even his character was a bit daft.   Megan Sikora hits all the right notes as a woman married to song and dance.  Corbin Bleu was a smiley smarmy dancing thing but it was hard to feel anything for his character as it was so undeveloped. He smiled, smarmed and danced very well.  Megan Lawrence was funny in the comic role. Lora Lee Gayer in the Judy Garland type role, made me long for...well Judy Garland. 

The show was respectable homage to old time musicals. I did like the one underpinning of "In the pursuit of happiness.. why not just be happy instead of pursuing it."  A message I welcomed in my semi NY doldrums.

An enjoyable evening  of old fashioned musical.

 

[Trish2]

Posted: 9/21/16 at 11:26am

That's great for Denis Jones! Finally making a name for himself after following in Jerry Mitchell's shoes for so long. I may have to see it just for his work. ( on TDF of course)

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 9/21/16 at 1:52pm

Does anyone know if the creative team has been using the preview period to fix up the book? Have there been any changes implemented at all or is it pretty much frozen?

[little_sally]

Posted: 9/21/16 at 3:16pm

CATSNYrevival said: "Does anyone know if the creative team has been using the preview period to fix up the book? Have there been any changes implemented at all or is it pretty much frozen?


I overheard the usher say that the running time has been changing throughout previews so it seems like they're doing something.

 

[starcatchers]

Posted: 9/21/16 at 6:20pm

I saw it first preview and it ran around 2:30, maybe a little longer. Friends saw it over the weekend and it was about 2:15. 

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 9/21/16 at 7:15pm

Show got out at 10:20pm on the dot the night I saw it.

[matineeidol2591]

Posted: 9/23/16 at 2:18pm

I'd like to catch this tonight.  Any body have info on their rush policy/has anyone tried? 

[everythingtaboo]

Posted: 9/25/16 at 9:34pm

Wow, they must have really tightened this thing up because it says 2h15m in the insert, but it was exactly 4:15 this afternoon when I looked at my phone a good 2-3 minutes after the curtain call was over. 

 

The cast is great all around, but the book could've either used more depth or more jokes. Something. I know it's based on the movie, but act one kinda laid there for a good portion of act one. I've never seen the movie so I can't compare, but as a show, it was a snooze for long stretches. That said, act two moves a lot more and I felt like it was much more lively. 

[SweetLips]

Posted: 9/26/16 at 9:14am

Mr Roxy said: "To Justine

 

I was referencing the phrase itself.  Bleu just happened to be in the way there.

If you have to explain yourself--it doesn't work, but then...rarely does but congrats.for just pluggin' away/

 

 

 

[Ado Annie D'Ysquith]

Posted: 9/26/16 at 10:57am

I was able to get Hiptix for this. Looking forward- and my first purchase as a Hiptix member. :)

I could get used to Broadway at $25 a pop.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 9/26/16 at 2:43pm

This looks positively delightful.

 

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/BWW-TV-Bring-on-the-Blue-Skies-with-Highlights-from-HOLIDAY-INN-on-Broadway-20160926

Updated On: 9/26/16 at 02:43 PM

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 9/26/16 at 2:49pm

Delightful is exactly the word I'd use to describe it. I expected much worse based on the reviews here but I found it to be wonderful. Didn't notice any book issues and loved the cast.